Singkawang is clearly multi-cultural. Looking out of our hotel window, we can see at least four mosques. And at breakfast they play the kind of sape music we know from Dayak culture back home.






So, all this is very perceptible. But what you notice, overwhelmingly, is the Chinese component in the cultural mix.

Look Singkawang up on the internet, and you'll find it described as "the city of a thousand temples" (I'm not sure if this is literally true, but there are certainly a lot...). Emily Zoe Hertzman, whose very informative article I'm going to be quoting a lot, describes it as the "ultimate Chinatown... the Chinatown of Indonesia": "In Singkawang the Chinese population spreads out, from the city center into the surrounding villages in each direction, from the central market, through major streets and small alleys that comprise the city. Chinese people are everywhere, visible, prominent and at home." Estimates vary on the proportion of the population that's ethnic Chinese (the figures I've seen range from 42 to 72 per cent), but it's certainly significant. Hakka is widely spoken.

None of this, you have to remember, is necessarily the case in other parts of Indonesia, which experienced waves of marked anti-Chinese sentiment in the past, some of them very violent.

Singkawang's Chinese community goes back to the 18th century. The first wave of migrants initially came at the request of the sultans of Sambas and Mempawah, who wanted them to mine for gold. This first generation of labourers married local women, who took on their husbands' cultural and religious practices. Subsequent flows of traders, entrepreneurs, and Chinese women came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Chinese population today "consists primarily of working-class and lower-middle-class petty merchants, farmers, and primary producers". It forms, along with Malays and Dayaks, the third leg of the province's "triculturalism". Also present in the city are Javanese, Madurese, and Bugis populations, and a small Tambi community, descended from Indian traders who married Malays.

It's not, be it noted, that there's NEVER anti-Chinese sentiment. In 2010, for example, there was a protest against the newly erected dragon statue:


But what followed was a rally in support of it. The following year, one of the deities from the oldest temple was damaged. But the perpetrator was found.

Such incidents do take place, and the possibility of recurrences can never be entirely ruled out. "However," says Hertzman, "the promulgation of the ideology of multicultural harmony (represented by the province’s idea of triculturalism), has been taken up by many residents as their own civic identification. This promotes a sustained, functional harmony."





Anyway, with that by way of introduction, here's a little celebration of Singkawang's Chinese heritage.

We start with Vihara Tri Dharma Bumi Raya, right in the centre of the city (the main deity here is our very own Tua Pek Kong):












Also highly photogenic is the Rumah Marga Tjhia, built at the very beginning of the 20th century by Chinese migrant Xie Shou Shi (aka Tjhia Siu Si):













These two are noted monuments. But as you make your way around the town (which we've done a lot), you just keep happening on temples... All sorts. Big. Or small. Tacked onto quite grubby-looking buildings. Or spanking new in their own grounds.











To close, here's the temple right opposite our hotel:







I always love the aesthetics of Chinese places of worship, and here they also testify to a spirit of resilience, cultural mixing, and hope for the future.

It has been a pleasure to sample just a few of the thousand...